Mountain lion Bootcamp Backup

Mountain lion backup utility used in bootcamp for an NTFS Win8 partition to external hard drive.  Anyone with experience doing this?

Look at a few posts here for links to a new windows 7 ISO and another link to burn it to a new disk
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6071093?tstart=0

Similar Messages

  • IMac 27" (late 2011), Mountain Lion, Bootcamp, and OSX partition disappearing and refusing to mount

    Hey all,
    I'm putting this as a question in the discussion forms for bootcamp as I'm not sure where else to put it, but I resolved an issue I was having and having spent all of yesterday and the day before reading through this community and some others looking for answers and mostly seeing "hope you have backups, time to format!" (which to me is not always the best answer), I thought I would put it here for search purposes (with all the key words I had to use) in case anyone else has a similar issue.
    My scenario was this:
    2011 27" iMac with Mountain Lion installed and Windows 7 installed on a boot camp partition.
    1) Haven't been in windows in a while, wanted to play some windows only steam games. Load windows 7. All is well. Have fun. Time to reboot into osx.
    2) Reboot using bootcamp toolbar icon.
    3) Wander away from computer. Come back to find windows 7 has loaded again. "That's weird", I think. Reboot again, this time hold down option key to select boot device.
    4) Discover the only options are the Bootcamp partition and the Recovery partition. OSX "Macintosh HD" partition has disappeared. Huh.
    5) Load recovery partition and load disk utility.
    6) Review disk utility to discover the Macintosh HD partition shows up in the list, but won't mount. Run verify and repair tools. Errors are as follows: Invalid node structure, invalid key length, invalid record count, etc etc. Running a repair fails - disk utility advises me to back up and erase the drive and that the partition is unrepairable. No offense disk utility, but I think I'll try a few more options first.
    7) Purchase DiskWarrior on advice of multiple posters in other threads and general online consensus of it being capable of fixing these sorts of errors. Go through process of loading bootable dvd.
    8) Diskwarrior cannot see the Macintosh HD partition. This is bad. Review more threads. Advice is that if diskwarrior can't fix it, hope you have backups and wipe the drive. Likely to be hardware failure. I'm skeptical of hardware failure, because windows is chugging along running fine if I boot into it, and I ran a scan of the windows partition and it came back clean. SMART status is also showing the drive is ok. However, running out of options and starting to lose hope.
    9) Follow advice in this support topic: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417?viewlocale=de_de Both safe mode and disk utility aren't options (safe mode won't work without it seeing the partition) so sounds like fsck is the final option.
    10) Start up in Single User Mode (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492). Run fsck per instructions. It reports back ok.
    11) Realize fsck is checking the recovery partition, and not my damaged OSX partition. Realize I don't know anything about unix commands and have no idea how to tell fsck to check a different partition.
    12) Learn that I need to find out what the drive id is for the damaged partition. Reboot, load up disk utility, select greyed out "macintosh HD" partition, click info. Write down the id: disk0s2 (likely to be the default for you as well if you have one drive in your imac and a default bootcamp install).
    13) Go back into single user mode and type the following (without quotes): "fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2"
    14) (Forgot to copy down exactly what it said at this point, but gist of it was that the drive had errors and isnt repairable). Feel like ****, thinking this is unlikely to resolve itself nicely.
    15) With nothing to lose, try to force fsck to rebuild the catalog - "fsck_hfs -rc -d /dev/disk0s2" I found this syntax on some forums and can't find the thread again. I have no idea what the -rc and -d do that -fy don't, but if someone can let me know, that'd be cool. Either way, this resulted in something actually happening. Tells me it is "rebuilding catalogue b-tree". Still, finishes with a bunch of errors about improperly linked files, more node errors, etc etc.
    16) Retry "fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2". It seems to be doing stuff now, even though there are lots of errors. Continue to re-run fsck using this syntax. Probably ran it 10-15 times. Takes over an hour. Finally, minimal errors being reported.
    17) Realize that perhaps I should try Diskwarrior again now, since I've managed to do soemthing to the partition with fsck.
    18) Run Diskwarrior from bootable DVD. Success! It now sees the damaged partition. Reports that it has a bunch of damaged crtitical files, and needs to be repaired, but hey, at least it can see it.
    19) Let Diskwarrior do its thing, and reboot.
    20) Boot from repaired OSX partition. Rejoice. Immediately plug back in the timemachine drive you foolishly unplugged to take away over the holidays and neglected to plug back in before you had commenced work on stuff you didnt want to lose through formatting, which is why you are so desperate to recover files rather than wiping and restoring from time machine backups and avoiding this whole mess.
    TL;DR - If Disk Utility and DriveWarrior fail you, try running fsck (using different syntax that apple recommends) as many times as it takes to get the partition to a stage where diskwarrior can see it. All advice I saw for similar questions was to erase, reinstall OSX, and restore from time machine backup. For those of you who are foolish like me and had files that werent time machine'd, or those who operate without, maybe try this.
    Hope this helps!

    What -rc & -d do.
    From: The fsck_hfs manual page.
    https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages /man8/fsck_hfs.8.html
    -d      Display debugging information.  This option may provide useful information when fsck_hfs cannot repair a damaged file system.
    -r      Rebuild the catalog btree.  This is synonymous with -Rc.
    -R flags Rebuilds the requested btree.  The following flags are supported:
                             a       Attribute btree
                             c       Catalog btree
                             e       Extents overflow btree
    I had the same problem as you but unfortunately "fsck_hfs -rc -d /dev/disk0s2" is failing saying: "The volume   could not be verified completely." I believe it's supposed to be telling me the partition's name (normally "Macintosh HD") between 'volume' and 'could' because there's 3 spaces in between the words.
    "fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2" is failing with the same error.
    I tried "fsck_hfs -r -d /dev/disk0s2" since the c appears redundant with a lowercase R. and it again says it cannot be verified completely and adds "volume check failed with error 7". Which unfortunately is not documented on the fsck_hfs man page!
    Unfortunately for me, Diskwarrior still can't see my busted Mac OS partition.

  • Partitons w/in Mountain Lion: Bootcamp oldest Microsoft OS; other partitions oldest Mac OS?

    Would like to run early 2000s Windows and Mac games (e.g. Tombraider) on the new iMac w/Mountain Lion. Can I Bootcamp to XP or should I go to Vista or 7? As for Mac OS can I go as far back as Tiger (10.4) or only later such as Leopard (10.5 or 10.6)?

    It can't. Older Mac OS X versions simply won't boot that iMac. Furthermore, partitioning a drive with Boot Camp set up on it may disable the ability to boot into Windows.
    You were able to set up the G5 with two Mac OS X versions because both of them were newer than the computer.
    (90665)

  • HT5628 Can Mountain Lion bootcamp support Windows Vista?

    Im not really for sure what version my boot camp is. I hear there is a boot camp 5, but im not for sure if its already downloaded to my computer. I have a Mac Book Pro-13inch., 8gb of memory, and its a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5. I got it this April with Mountain Lion already installed. I update it every time a new update has been released. Please respond soon because I want to play my old games on Windows through Mac. Thanks

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    You are using OS X Mountain Lion, so you are using Boot Camp 5. Boot Camp 5 only supports Windows 7 and 8, so you can't install Windows Vista in your computer. If you want to install Windows Vista, create a virtual machine, but games won't work correctly.
    The other option is to buy Windows 7 and 8 and install it in Boot Camp, so you should be able to play to these games with compatibility mode

  • Find iweb file in mountain lion - to backup ;o)

    See this link here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PybWug5YWuQ

    I keep mine on an external Raid:

  • Will upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion delete my Windows partition (bootcamp)?

    On my other computer I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, and the windows vista partition was completely deleted.  I was wondering if I upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion on my other mac with Windows 7 will it be affected, or in other words, is Mountain Lion Bootcamp compatable with WIndows 7. Should I save it to an external hard drive?
    Thanks!

    No OS X installer deletes a Windows partition automatically. There is no reason for a Mountain Lion installer to do so when upgrading from Lion.
    Nevertheless, having backups is always a good idea no matter what. If you don't have them, then this is a good time for them.

  • Time Machine Backup is slow (perhaps corrupt?) after Mountain Lion upgrade

    Hello!
    I managed to download and upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion yesterday. Before the upgrade, I performed a backup via TM just in case. Now, in Mountain Lion, the backup prepares and begins around 12GB of backups but never gets passed 2MB of data transferred. The TM logo keeps turning, the external HDD is clicking and the activity light is blinking to indicate communication.
    I vaguely remember having a slow backup after upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion, but never *this* slow.
    Has anyone else encountered a similar issue or know of any diags I could do? As a prerequisite to this, I have attempted to verify the disk in Disk Utility but it seemed to be taking a long time (around 2 hours without completion) to verify, too.
    Thanks =]

    I am also experiencing very slow backups since upgrading to ML.  You didn't go into specifics on your hardware setup (type of machine, backup drive, etc).
    I'm using a MB air (Mid 2011) with a Thunderbolt display.  I have a G-Tech 2 gig external drive connected with Firewire 800 through the Thunderbolt display.
    My backups had always been pretty quick.  Now they can take up to half an hour or longer depending on the amount of data to be processed.
    One suggestion for you is to obtain a time machine log viewer.  I use "logviewer for time machine" that I got in the Mac App store.  I think it is $0.99, but there other apps that are available for free.  This is nothing more than a log viewer that you refresh and see each step of your backup including any errors.  A lot better than right clicking the spinning circle around the clock in the menu bar for status updates.
    I am baffled on why the slowdown.  I am think of opening a case with Apple Support.
    Take care

  • Novice upgrading Lion to Mountain Lion

    I got my MacBook Pro in June, 2012 and it is certainly compatible. It came with Lion pre-installed. I now want to upgrade to Mountain Lion and I have some questions.  I've read many of the posts and I am thankful I did.  Those posts prompt some of my questions. (I apologize ahead of time if most of these questions appear like they come from a moron. I'm not that; just totally inexperienced with Mac's. This is my first one.)
    I downloaded the Mountain Lion installer on September 27th but did not run it because I did not have an external drive to make a bootable backup of Lion as recommended. I now have an external drive. When I downloaded the Mountain Lion installer I was running Lion 10.7.4 and still am. In October, Lion 10.7.5 became available but I have not installed it.  Should I install 10.7.5 before I run the Mountain Lion installer? Is my Mountain Lion installer for 10.7.4 since that is what I was running when I downloaded it? If I update to 10.7.5 will I need to try and download the Mountain Lion installer again?
    In Disk Utility I get the following Permissions errors:
    2012-12-26 18:21:10 -0500: Disk Utility started.
    2012-12-26 18:21:20 -0500: Verifying permissions for “Macintosh HD”
    2012-12-26 18:21:23 -0500: Group differs on “Library/Image Capture”; should be 80; group is 0.
    2012-12-26 18:21:23 -0500: Permissions differ on “Library/Image Capture”; should be drwxrwxr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .
    2012-12-26 18:21:24 -0500: Group differs on “Library/Image Capture/Support”; should be 80; group is 0.
    2012-12-26 18:21:35 -0500: Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/hp/cups/Laserjet.driver/Contents/PlugIns/SmartPrint.plugin”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are lrwxr-xr-x .
    2012-12-26 18:25:18 -0500: User differs on “Applications/.DS_Store”; should be 0; user is 501.
    2012-12-26 18:25:18 -0500: Permissions differ on “Applications/.DS_Store”; should be -rw-rw-r-- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .
    2012-12-26 18:25:24 -0500: Permissions differ on “Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin”; should be lrwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxr-xr-x .
    2012-12-26 18:25:24 -0500: Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.
    2012-12-26 18:25:31 -0500: Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent” has been modified and will not be repaired.
    2012-12-26 18:26:21 -0500:
    2012-12-26 18:26:21 -0500: Permissions verification complete
    These errors do not appear on the list of Permission Errors you can ignore (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448). Should I repair these permissions before I make my backup or do the upgrade? They are not causing any problems currently and if I have to go back to Lion because the Mountain Lion upgrade fails, it doesn't seem like they will bother me then. Will they cause any problems with the upgrade?
    The external drive is 1TB. It seems like I should set up several partitions before I put anything on it; one for the Lion bootable backup, one for a copy of the Mountain Lion installer (or will it be in the Lion backup?), one for a Mountain Lion bootable backup (which seems like it should be the first thing I do after the upgrade), one for Time Machine or other backups. Does all of this sound right?
    Any preference between Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper? They both look simple enough even for me.
    I don't have many programs installed and if they end up being incompatible, I won't mind trying to get them again. The exception is Microsoft Office that I bought and installed when I got th Mac. Will I have any problems with it?
    I thank you all for any guidance you can give me.

    Should I install 10.7.5 before I run the Mountain Lion installer? Is my Mountain Lion installer for 10.7.4 since that is what I was running when I downloaded it? If I update to 10.7.5 will I need to try and download the Mountain Lion installer again?
    No need. Just install over 10.7.4
    In Disk Utility I get the following Permissions errors:
    They have been repaired or do not need to be repaired even though it says it is repairing them when it is not.
    The external drive is 1TB. It seems like I should set up several partitions before I put anything on it; one for the Lion bootable backup, one for a copy of the Mountain Lion installer (or will it be in the Lion backup?), one for a Mountain Lion bootable backup (which seems like it should be the first thing I do after the upgrade), one for Time Machine or other backups. Does all of this sound right?
    A partition for the clone might be useful. Make sure it is big enough to hold the clone. If the installer is on the Clone, then it is fine leaving there.
    After that, the drive really won't be big enough to split off again for bootable clone and Time Machine. You may consider just running with the bootable lion clone for a while, with the rest as Time Machine. When/if you decide you don't need the Lion Clone anymore, you could clone your ML to it.
    I don't have any recomendation on the cloning programs.
    I don't have many programs installed and if they end up being incompatible, I won't mind trying to get them again. The exception is Microsoft Office that I bought and installed when I got th Mac. Will I have any problems with it?
    I thank you all for any guidance you can give me.
    Office 2008 and 2011 will run fine on Mountain Lion. Make sure it is fully updated. I can't imagine you got Office 2004 (which doesn't work) at the time you purchased your Mac.
    The other concern is external peripherals like printers and scanners. Most have updates, but if you've been dragging around an old printer or scanner, some manufacturers abandon the older products.

  • Mail recovery in snow leopard from mountain lion

    hi,
    i've just reinstalled my old snow leopard onto my mabook pro (2010).
    but unfortunately my mail exports didn't include all my mails.
    so now i would like to transfer my mails from my mountain lion backup (which i have on a external hdd) onto my snow leopard mail.
    is that possible? i would like to skip the steps that i backup my snow leopard, recover my mountain lion from backup, copy the mails and reload my current snow leopard. i tried the migration service and directly copying the mail files ( the folder and the .plist file from the preferences, which had a unusual suffix attached to it so eventually it didn't work) but none of those steps worked out, maybe i did something wrong?
    any suggestions? would really appreciate it!

    Ok, i figured it out now. Here the solution:
    -close mail
    -allow finder to show hidden files -> google if you don't know how to do that.
    -open up your time machine hdd and select the latest( or the one you want to recover) date folder. with your privat folder in it
    -navigate to users/(your name)/library/mail and copy that folder onto your hard drive.
    -open up your current user library folder and navigate to the same "mail" folder.
    -from the importet folder "Mail", select the inboxes(they have your emailadress on it) you want to import. Navigate in that .mbox file to the subfolder "Messages", here you can see all your messages with the suffix .emlx, leave that finder window open
    -on your current mail folder there is a subfolder called "Mailboxes" create a .mbox file there (just add a new folder and rename it to (name it as you want).mbox)  
    -create a subfolder in that just created .mbox file named "Messages" now copy all messages you want to import into that folder from your already opened imported mail folder.
    after your done moving the files open your mail programm and click "import inbox" now just choose your created .mbox file, in which you copied all your mails and hit import. the mails will now be imported to Apple Mail.
    and your done.

  • How to uninstall mountain lion

    How to uninstall mountain lion?

    Backup your files, erase the hard drive, install an earlier version of OS X.
    Downgrade Lion/Mountain Lion to Snow Leopard
    1.  Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button.  When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area.  If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing.  SMART info will not be reported  on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
    This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
    If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.  If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

  • I get a disk error when trying to upgrade to mountain lion on my mac book pro that also runs bootcamp

    I recently tried to upgrade my macbook pro OSX to mountain lion via the app store. When it tried to install it gives me a disk error. I have run disk utilities and repaired, verified etc. but it makes no difference. I am running bootcamp as well and have tried to modifiy the partition sizes in disk utilities, but it says for both that they cannot be modified. I can switch my startup disk and reboot in windows, no problem, so getting my files off isnt the issue. I have also tried to recover the hard disk using time machine which i was lucky enough to backup the day before it all went wrong. However, time machine runs fine until it asks me which disk to recover and it gives me an option of the time machine disk or bootcamp, but no option for my mac partition. So, I have tried everything that makes snese, but getting errors with disks lock, cant repartition, disk error needs repair (which i know is not true, its only because of the Mountain Lion OSX that its messed up). Any ideas?

    You have some other problem with your boot drive that has corrupted data backed up to the TimeMacine drive.
    My advice is to boot into each operating system and manually backup just your Users files each to separate regular external drives (no Timemachine or backup software) and disconnect.
    Make a note of any serial numbers, emails, address book contacts, export bookmarks etc. that isn't typically in your users folders data.
    You might be able to Winclone 3 the Windows as a whole thing as it's appearing not to have issues but it's your MacintoshHD partition that is so that will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
    Most commonly used backup methods
    If your OS X parititon doesn't boot, you can use this to recover files.
    Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
    Without any further detail about your machine I can't advise specifically what to do, but it involves using Disk Utility to Zero Erase (move slider one spot to the right or in 10.6 using Security Option) the ENTIRE boot drive and reformatting, then installing OSX fresh and then setting up BootCamp again.
    If you wish to switch your boot drive for something better, this is a good time to do this.
    Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's
    If your machine is capable of Internet Recovery, then use that, then upgrade.
    If your machine came with 10.6 or earlier, then use the 10.6 install disks and work up from there.
    Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's

  • After upgrading to mountain lion i keep getting an error message saying my startup disc is full. it shouldnt be full because there is barely anything on there and i was running windows with bootcamp prior to this with no issues

    after upgrading to mountain lion i keep getting an error message saying my startup disc is full. it shouldnt be full because there is barely anything on there and i was running windows with bootcamp prior to this with no issues. my computer now freezes and programs close randomly. The usual command for opening windows with bootcamp doesnt work. once in restarted my computer after it froze and it rebooted in windows automatically. i really just want to know if there is a way to take the upgrade off my laptop because it is very annoying.

    Hi Memalyn
    Essentially, the bare issue is that you have a 500GB hard drive with only 10GB free. That is not sufficient to run the system properly. The two options you have are to move/remove files to another location, or to install a larger hard drive (eg 2TB). Drive space has nothing to do with SMC firmware, and usually large media files are to blame.
    My first recommendation is this: download and run the free OmniDiskSweeper. This will identify the exact size of all your folders - you can drill down into the subfolders and figure out where your largest culprits are. For example, you might find that your Pictures folder contains both an iPhoto Library and copies that you've brought in from a camera but are outside the iPhoto Library structure. Or perhaps you have a lot of purchased video content in iTunes.
    If you find files that you KNOW you do not need, you can delete them. Don't delete them just because you have a backup, since if the backup fails, you will lose all your copies.
    Don't worry about "cleaners" for now - they don't save much space and can actually cause problems. Deal with the large file situation first and see how you get on.
    Let us know what you find out, and if you manage to get your space back.
    Matt

  • Can not Upgrade Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion due to Bootcamp

    This is a long standing problem I had since I bought my Macbook Pro (a purchase now I deeply regret) almost two years ago.
    I keep asking around every few months, to see if anyone came up with a good solution. I hope someone can help me this time
    When I decided to buy my Macbook pro 10.6.8 with Snow Leopard, Apple said that the macbook would run smootly both in OSX and Windows due to bootcamp dual boot. I was quite happy about that,since my job requires me to use some Windows-only software and I was curious about apple products.
    Unfortunately, they fail to mention (or maybe they did not foresee) that upgrading anything on both OSX or Windows would have been a true nightmare. Right off the bat I spent countless hours trying to upgrade my graphic card drivers in Windows. More problems arrived every time a new software/upgrade/driver/OS update was coming up. The final blow was the release of OSX Lion.
    With a Bootcamp partition it is not possible to upgrade the OS from Snow Leopard to Lion or Mountain Lion. The reason is because a recovery system can't be created. The only solution I found so far would be:
    1) Buy two separate external HD
    2) Backup individually OSX and Windows data
    3) Re-install OS leopard
    4) Upgrade to Mountain Lion
    5) Creat a bootcamp partition
    6) re-install Windows
    7) re-install one by one any software on both OS (Matlab, Ansys, Office .... etc ... etc ... etc... [6-8 hours])
    8) Restore all data
    9) Wait for next OS release, DO IT AGAIN
    Forgive me , but this is absurd. I simply refuse of waste so much time and money
    Did anyone have the same problem and found a more cleaver way to solve it?
    Thanks!!!!

    This was solved some time ago. See the following:
    I saw a reference to an Apple bulletin on how to solve the problem if Lion rejects your install AND you have a BootCamp partition.
    It seems the issue is that the space at the "bottom" of your available space when Lion installs it's partition is already occupied by BootCamp. The fix was to go into Disk Utility; Select your Hard Drive; Select Partition; Move the bottom of your main partition "up" a bit to create a space for Lion; close Disk Utility; Install Lion; once Lion is successfully installed, go back into Disk Partition and drag the bottom of your main partition back "down" to the bottom of the window.
    You need to create a space about 2 GB in size.

  • Time machine backup disappeared after upgrading OS from Lion to Mountain Lion.

    I made a full backup of my 2011 Macbook Pro to my network drive through Time Machine in order to upgrade to Mountain Lion. However, after the upgrade, the backup could not be found. As it went through the install, I opted to recover the backup afterwards as I have read that you can do that after the upgrade. But the migration assistant could not find a backup.
    So I looked in Finder at my external drive, and sure enough the backup is gone.
    Some extra info:
    So I don't know if this has affected anything important, I'm not that computer smart.
    Prior to this I've been trying to get Windows 7 to work on bootcamp (still not working). I needed the OS X install disc, but I didn't have the install disc(I had OS Lion installed) and I bought the laptop from someone at work, so I couldn't get the Lion iso pulled from the recovery to a flash drive (it required the previous owners password to his apple account). Therefore I purchased the Mountain Lion Upgrade (Lion being no longer available. I didn't really want mountain lion). So when I started the Mountain Lion install, I had the "brilliant" idea to install it on the flash drive I had intended to use in the first place. Well, I didn't think it was gonna start the upgrade immediately after that. Anyways, after I realised my mistake I redid the install, process was the same, chose the main HD, went well. This was where I opted out of the recover-from-backup option. At this point I tried to restore my backup through the migration assistant. It said there was not enough room on the hard drive. I then noticed that all the memory used up prior upgrading was still in use, but under the old main user. I didn't do much with it, and thinking that my backup had my back, I did a full clean install. Another mistake. After the clean install, the migration assistant said there was no backup. I looked in finder, it was gone.
    I didn't touch the hard drive thinking it is either hidden, or deleted but not written over yet and still could be recovered. I don't know how to explore these options, I can't find anything online about either. Or perhaps there are other options to consider?
    Please advise.

    It's early 2011.
    I have been able to purchase the upgrade under my username at the upgrade price. I didn't know that Lion stays under the previous owner's Apple account. I mean I got that when I tried putting the Lion Iso on a bootable drive (for the purpose of bootcamp) it said I needed the username and password of the Lion purchaser, but I went to get my own license then, but it was Mountain Lion at the upgrade price. I didn't think it had anything to do with my backup.
    So looking back, that seems like a warning Apple should have put out for people to be wary of. "Hey, don't buy a laptop from someone and then upgrade, you'll lose everything." That's a load of crap. I thought I had no worries as long as I had a backup. I've never needed a backup, then the one time I thought I was in good hands. Nope, I try to do something, and it takes everything from me. That was a lot of data worth of stuff. 550 Gigs! I was shocked and in complete disbelief the moment I realized what I had done.
    I just don't want to give this up.

  • Reinstalling Mountain Lion with a Bootcamp partition present

    My OSX10.8 partition has failed, not even allowing the Recovery function to reinstall Mountain Lion, or to restore from my Time Machine. So I assume I will need to reformat the drive using Disk Utility, then reinstall the OSX. BUT - I have an old Bootcamp partition running Windows XP. I need the partition for running some older software. Question: Can I erase the OSX partition, reinstall Mountain Lion and leave the Bootcamp untouched? Will the new OSX10.8 install see the previous Bootcamp drive?

    Assuming your drive hasn't failed:
    Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
    Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
    Erase the hard drive:
      1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
      2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
          left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
      3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
            the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
          the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
      4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
    Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
    Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
                because it is three times faster than wireless.

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